Tears Museum, Syracuse

The Tears Museum is the most important of the three Museums of the Sanctuary because here are displayed documents, photographs, and newspaper articles concerning the “Tears of the Madonna in Syracuse,” as well as numerous objects linked to this event, such as some rags used to clean the weeping statue of the “Little Madonna,” the test tubes and tools used to analyze the chemical composition of these tears (which later proved to be “human” with a chemical composition similar to that of a child’s tears), but also the wooden desk where the authenticity of the tears wept by the “Madonna” was confirmed, the trowel used to lay the “First Stone” of the Sanctuary in 1964 by the then Cardinal of Sicily Ernesto Ruffini, the pontifical ring of Monsignor Ettore Baranzini who was Archbishop of Syracuse during the years the cult of the “Our Lady of Tears” developed (1953 – 1973), the gold “Cross” of Monsignor Sebastiano Rosso, first rector of the emerging “Sanctuary,” various liturgical objects including a silver Chalice and Monstrance donated by the Cassone family, and many rather precious Ex voto.